Steinberg: "VST 2 Coming To An End"

Steinberg has releaased an announcement stating that VST 2 is coming to an end, spelling out the end of support for the VST 2 format in replacement of full support for VST 3.

From October 2018 onward we are closing down the second version of VST for good. While the VST 2 SDK has been unavailable, and so have maintenance and technical support, the subset within the VST 3 SDK will also be omitted.

VST 2 compatibility with Steinberg VST hosts will remain, however, we recommend to root for the latest version of VST. VST 2 was introduced in 1999 and since then the technology has evolved dramatically. Since 2008, the SDK for the third iteration of VST, VST 3, has been available and since then efforts are focused entirely on the further development of VST 3.

While your DAW’s will of course continue to support for VST 2 for (hopefully) years to come, this decision of Steinberg to bid farewell to VST 2 will, in many ways, discourage plugin developers to release under the VST 2 format – and this will raise compatibility issues.